Ruysch, Johannes (C. 1460-1533)

"Universalior Cogniti Orbis Tabula Ex Recentibus Confecta Observationi" ("a Universal Map of the Known World, Constructed By Means of Recent Observations") From Geographia Cl. Ptholemaei

      1507. THE FIRST OBTAINABLE WORLD MAP TO SHOW A PRINTED DEPICTION OF AMERICAThe Engraving: 17” x 23” References: Lloyd Arnold Brown, The World Encompassed, exh. cat. (Baltimore, 1952), n. 54; Rodney W. Shirley, The Mapping of the World (London, 1983), n. 25; Philip D. Burden, The Mapping of North America: A List of Printed Maps 1511-1670 (Rickmansworth, 1996), xxiii. The first world map to show the New World was the 1506 map published by Francesco Rosselli in Florence, while another was included in Martin Waldseemüller's map of the same year. Both of these works are known in a single existing example, meaning that Ruysch's rare map is the earliest cartographic representation of the newly discovered lands that remains available to collectors. Drawn according to Ptolemy's first (coniform, or fan-shaped) projection, Ruysch's map was the first indication of America in any edition of the Geography, and incorporated geographical discoveries from Portuguese, Spanish and English explorations in America. The nomenclature was particularly influential. South America is named "Mundus Novus" or "New World" from Vespucci's published accounts asserting that this was a "fourth" or "new" corner of the globe, distinct from Europe, Asia and Africa. Ruysch's map provides a revealing window onto both the cartographical misconceptions and advances of the Renaissance. Mapmakers were still struggling to understand what relationship the newly discovered lands bore to the coast of Asia--whether they were the easternmost extremities of that continent (as Columbus had assumed) or distinct from it. Ruysch seems to have equivocated on that point. Although he advocated the theory that the territorial discoveries were indeed a New World simply by labeling South America as "Mundus Novus, " he still showed Greenland and Newfoundland ("Terre Nova") attached to Asia. In other ways, however, Ruysch broke away from received wisdom in his geographical configurations. This work is, for example, the first...